Table Of ContentROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ
blood
on
border
the
A MEMOIR OF
THE CONTRA WAR
With a New Afterword by the Author
Foreword by Margaret Randall
Praise for the 2005 edition of Blood on the Border
“Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is clearly a memoirist of great skills and even greater heart.
She’s a force of nature on the page and off.”
Dave Eggers
author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
“American foreign policy today is being shaped by veterans of the savage Washington-
backed Contra war of the 1980s. In the third volume of her extraordinary memoir,
Dunbar-Ortiz recounts the secret history of that intervention, as well as her own
courageous solidarity with the embattled Nicaraguan revolution.”
Mike Davis
author of City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear
“Here is the real life of a brilliant activist, the personal woes and conflicts, the roles of
friendship, character and gender, as well as the big issues and shining moments; and
here is a rousing account of the 1980s, so relevant and so seldom discussed. Yet the
1980s seem very close these days, as a right-wing administration once again sponsors
torture, war, and other crimes in the name of freedom—and as Latin America once
again is on fire with liberation movements. Of particular importance is Dunbar-Ortiz’s
exploration of the gray zones between the indigenous Miskitus in Nicaragua and the
Sandinistas. An important book, and a gripping one.”
Rebecca Solnit
author of Hope in the Dark and River of Shadows
“This third volume of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s important memoir combines deep self-
reflection with an extraordinary political overview of times that are mostly forgotten
because the current owners of history have succeeded in erasing them from our
collective consciousness. ‘History itself is the issue,’ this author writes, and goes on to
expose and deconstruct that which she has so courageously lived. From a quarter-
century of international indigenous rights work to a run-in with Oliver North and a
narrow escape from death on a sabotaged Mexico–Managua flight, Dunbar-Ortiz’s
story is an exciting and sobering read that holds valuable lessons for today’s ongoing
struggles for justice.”
Margaret Randall
author of When I Look into the Mirror and See You: Women, Terror, and Resistance
“This is an impressive, astounding, and truthful historical document. Every American
should read it to understand the shady and dubious role played in Central America by
the men who are forging US foreign policy in the world today. A passionate and
engaged protagonist of historical times, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz tells a story that is
moving, profoundly human, and enlightening.”
Gioconda Belli
author of The Country under My Skin
“Terrorism was planted in the Western Hemisphere, or Indian Country, when the first
immigrant stole in the name of greed, racism, or on the basis of a political or religious
system that placed themselves above all living beings, placed males above females in
power—then strove to keep in place this tenuous and terrible system with laws, with
gun power. This book is the story of a particular rupture, in Central America, at the
heart of the Americas. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz speaks on behalf of justice. It’s never
simple. And there is no clean, perfect ending. What is sure here is the brilliant, fearless
storytelling by Dunbar-Ortiz of the devastation wreaked by a ruthless corrupt power.
What is sure is the ongoing drama of the story: it entangles all of us.”
Joy Harjo
Mvskoke Nation poet and musician
“September 11, 1973—the date of the CIA-sponsored coup against the government of
Salvador Allende in Chile—marks the beginning of a long period of conservative
hegemony in the Americas, though the aftermath of September 11, 2001, has witnessed
in Latin America at least a gradual shift to the left. In that context, it is urgent to take a
new look at the revolutionary upsurge from the 1960s through the 1980s. Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz was a North American activist personally involved in the revolutionary
process, above all in Central America. Her memoir, which deals with the Contra war
against the Nicaraguan revolution, is an essential book in this regard, and at the same
time an engrossing, eminently readable example of the feminist idea that ‘the personal
is the political.’”
John Beverley
author of Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth
“This is a comprehensive and powerful account of the development of the Contra war
of the 1980s, which destroyed many lives and changed the course of Central American
history. . . . All the gears of Reagan-era political manipulation are exposed here,
including the Iran-Contra scandal, and the countless ways in which Reagan’s
propaganda machine created monstrous lies about the situation of the Miskitu people
during the Sandinista Revolution. . . . Vividly written with the authoritative voice of a
fearless witness, this book is required reading for anyone interested in the truth.”
Daisy Zamora
poet and author of Riverbed of Memory
“Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s new book . . . captures a messy snapshot of our country and
her own life. A living embodiment of the philosophy ‘the personal is political,’ she
navigates a dense narrative river through her early, youthful enthusiasm for social
change, moving upstream toward a hard-edged and realistic perception of the
undertows of political waters. Along the route she spares no politician—Left or Right—
who has pushed antipopulist agendas or pushed indigenous people around. Dunbar-
Ortiz takes every political betrayal, accommodation and broken treaty personally; yet
always she reveals an unbowed human spirit—a major ingredient in victory.”
Jewelle Gomez
author of The Gilda Stories
“Rarely do the personal and the political blend so seamlessly as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
recounts her tireless efforts to oppose US imperialism during and after Nicaragua’s
Contra war of the 1980s. [Her] life and work in this period foreshadow today’s struggles
over issues as diverse as terrorism, governmental press manipulation, engaged
scholarship, activism, alcoholism, and even identity politics. This captivating blend of
personal memoir and political/intellectual history could not be more timely.”
Baron Pineda
author of Shipwrecked Identities: Navigating Race on the Mosquito Coast
“To academics, history is an exercise in juxtaposing public facts to create a believable
narrative. To the activist struggling within those facts, history is the personal memory
of the suffering of the ordinary folks who have been condemned by their history to be,
at best, merely a footnote in those facts. As a scholar, [Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz] told
their story. As an activist, she told her own. In combination, Dunbar-Ortiz has
produced some formidable historical memoirs, which end up being autobiographical
people’s histories. In Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie, by describing her upbringing in rural
Oklahoma, she made her readers understand what life was like to the repressed, often
off-white, sharecroppers (she herself is part Native American). In Outlaw Woman: A
Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975, she made us feel what it was like to be an
independent woman who became a human rights standard bearer at the UN. Now, in
Blood on the Border, she makes us live through the horrors of Reagan’s bloody war
against the first decent government in Central America, while at the same time bringing
to life the ordeal of the northeastern Nicaraguan tribes caught between Oliver North’s
vicious and illegal crusade and the ill-conceived nationalism of the Sandinistas, who
refused to give those tribes autonomy. In the process, Dunbar-Ortiz, a ferocious
feminist who spent years in Nicaragua living through that schizophrenic situation,
makes us experience the rise and fall of the anti-war, leftist, and especially the women’s
liberation movements, here at home and its consequences abroad.”
John Gerassi
author of The Great Fear in Latin America
“What can I say but thank you, Roxanne, for keeping such detailed memories of a time
of turmoil and growth of Indigenous people to the south. As an early founder of the
feminist movement, Roxanne assumed a position in the forefront of international
nation building, the realm of male domination, to just basically get the job done. And
what a job she did!”
Madonna Gilbert Thunderhawk
Lakota activist and AIM leader at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee
Blood on the Border
Also by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Economic Development in American Indian Reservations (ed.)
Native American Energy Resources and Development (ed.)
Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self-Determination
La Cuestión Mískita en la Revolución Nicaragüense
Indigenous Peoples: A Global Quest for Justice (ed.)
The Miskito Indians of Nicaragua: Caught in the Crossfire
Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie
Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico
The Great Sioux Nation: Oral History of the Sioux-United States Treaty of 1868
This Land: An Indigenous People’s History of the United States
Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1978
Blood on the Border
A Memoir of the Contra War
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
With a New Afterword
Foreword by Margaret Randall
•
University of Oklahoma Press : Norman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, 1938–
Title: Blood on the border : a memoir of the Contra War / by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz;
with a new afterword; foreword by Margaret Randall.
Description: Oklahoma paperback edition. | Norman : University of Oklahoma Press,
2016. | Originally published: Cambridge, Massachusetts : South End Press, 2005.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015048307 | ISBN 978-0-8061-5384-1 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Nicaragua—History—1979–1990. |
Counterrevolutions—Nicaragua—History—20th century. |
Terrorism—Nicaragua—History—20th century. | Fuerza Democrática
Nicaragüense—History. | Nicaragua. Fuerzas Armadas Sandinistas—History. |
Miskito Indians—History—20th century. | Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, 1938– |
Americans—Nicaragua—Biography. | Political activists—Nicaragua—Biography.
Classification: LCC F1528 .O78 2016 | DDC 972.8505/3—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048307
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources, Inc. ∞
First edition published by South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
copyright © 2005 by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
Oklahoma paperback edition published 2016 by the University of Oklahoma Press.
Foreword by Margaret Randall and Afterword, copyright © 2016 by the University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108
of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior written permission of the
University of Oklahoma Press. To request permission to reproduce selections from this
book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive,
Norman, OK 73069, or email [email protected].
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
To three great women:
Allene “Chockie” Cottier,
Dr. Mirna Cunningham,
and Maya Miller, for
support and love
To Indigenous peoples in
the struggle for self-
determination
And to the memory of all
the casualties of the
Contra War
